· Winner, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material
Previously Produced or Published (Steven Zaillian)

· Winner, Best Art Direction, Set Design (Allan Starski,
Ewa Braun)

·
1994 Golden Globes:

· Winner, Best Motion Picture, Drama

· Winner, Best Director, Motion Picture (Steven Spielberg)

· Winner, Best Screenplay, Motion Picture (Steven Zaillian)

· Nominated, Best Original Score, Motion Picture (John
Williams)

· Nominated, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion
Picture, Drama (Liam Neeson)

· Nominated, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting
Role in a Motion Picture (Ralph Fiennes)

date of release ·
1993

producers · Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig

setting (time) ·
1939–1945

setting (place) · Kraków, Poland

protagonist · Oskar Schindler

major conflict · Schindler struggles to save a group of Jews from death
at the hands of the Nazis.

rising action · Schindler, a Nazi war profiteer and womanizer, upon
witnessing increasing violence and killing of Jews in Nazi-occupied
Poland, undergoes a slow transformation, becoming a compassionate man
obsessed with saving the lives of the Jewish workers in his factory.

climax · As Schindler witnesses the evacuation of the Kraków
ghetto, he sees a little girl in a red coat. The image and the violence
he witnesses so move him that his humanity is awakened, and he realizes
he must do something to help.

falling action · After witnessing the evacuation of the Jewish ghetto,
Schindler realizes his factory is a haven for Jews and begins actively
to give Stern expensive goods to use as bribes to bring more Jews
into his factory, where he can keep them at least somewhat safe.

themes · The triumph of the human spirit; the difference one
individual can make; the dangerous ease of denial

motifs · Lists; trains; death

symbols · The girl in the red coat; the road paved with Jewish
headstones; piles of personal items

foreshadowing · Schindler has to rescue Stern from a train bound for
a death camp, foreshadowing his eventual rescue of all of his workers. The
appearance of tables for processing Jews foreshadows death. Schindler’s
use of bribery early in the film for his own gain foreshadows his
use of bribery to purchase the Jews.

More Help

Like many, I was very moved by the story of Oskar Schindler and his incredible actions to save "his" Jews from Auschwitz. It was a story of real humanity portrayed brilliantly by Liam Neeson and the film is a masterpiece of Spielberg's. I had never heard of Oskar Schindler until this film came out.

I am far from anti-semitic, in fact I am greatly moved by what happened to the Jews as well as Homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and others under the Nazis which was certainly an unimaginable horror story.